This month's cover highlights the article The stress granule protein G3BP1 promotes pre-condensation of cGAS to allow rapid responses to DNA by Ming Zhao, Tao Li and colleagues. The stress granule protein G3BP1 is critical for the activation of the DNA sensor cGAS. In resting cells, G3BP1 (red) engages cGAS (green) in a primary condensed state (yellow), and this pre-organization step is key to prime cGAS for its prompt response to DNA. (Scientific image by Ming Zhao, Tian Xia & Miao Wang, National Center of Biomedical Analysis, Beijing, China)